Head of Computer Center, Russell Schoust, resigns amidst system "dating" service scandal (what kinda gal U like?). This is the lead story in the Buzzard published March 17, 1978.

The Orange & White is founded as a dedicated source of sports coverage of Clemson University athletic programs. With offices on College Avenue, it is an independent operation without university connections. Former editor of The TigerSteve Ellis is founding editor and reporting staff.

February 25: Jimmy Buffett performs in Tillman Auditorium to sell-out crowd of 1,500 - three dollar admission - the most successful concert on campus in some time. The possibility of moving the show to Littlejohn Coliseum for more seating is rejected since it will drive up ticket costs.

February 26: The Atlanta Rhythm Section gets its second Billboard Top 40 hit, "So In To You", entering chart this date. Song will rise to number 7 during 14-week run. (Whitburn, Joel, "The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits", Billboard Publications, Inc., New York, 1985, ISBN 0-8230-7518-4, page 27.)

April 16: The Spartanburg-based Marshall Tucker Band's "Heard It In A Love Song" enters the Billboard Top 40, reaching number 14 during its 13-week run, the band's highest charting single. (Whitburn, Joel, "The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits", Billboard Publications, Inc., New York, 1985, ISBN 0-8230-7518-4, page 204.)

May 31: Clemson athletic officials announce the university will field women's volleyball for the first time in the fall of 1977. Grace Lyles is named the Lady Tigers' first coach. ("Clemson: Where The Tigers Play", by Sam Blackman, Bob Bradley and Chuck Kriese, Sports Publishing, L.L.C., 2001, page 195).

Early August: The Clemson Tiger Band relocates from cramped quarters in a converted storeroom across the hall from the campus bookstore underneath Harcombe Commons dining hall to the renovated ground floor of the Holtzendorff YMCA building. The band room occupies the former gymnasium space on the rear of the building facing Riggs Field.

August 27: The Union hosts a Beach Party at East Bank, music by WSBF, beer is 25 cents. Student-driven 1961 Chevrolet goes out of control on East Beach Road about 7:30 p.m. and strikes pick-up truck. Driver seriously injured, passenger is treated and released.

September 3: The Union sponsors a Wildwater Raft Trip - sign up at the Information Desk in the Loggia. A twenty-two year old student, Mack Randall Hayes, dies of injuries suffered in accident on East Beach Road when he lost control of his 1961 Chevrolet and struck a pick-up truck on August 27.

September 14: In one of the most lurid cases of violence in Clemson history, two armed Lawrenceville, Georgia brothers break into a Charleston Avenue student apartment about 11:40 p.m. and assault two sleeping residents, one of whom is sexually mutilated and whom the attackers are angry with for dating the older brother's ex-wife.

September 15: Severely injured student undergoes surgery at Emory University Hospital, Atlanta to, umm, repair his genitals. The procedure will be successful. In 1994, this will become known as the Bobbitt procedure.

September 22: Shooting takes place in the rear of the Red Carpet Lounge when 19-year-old Central resident Greg Simon shoots Haskell Cape of Seneca in the left thigh with a .357 magnum revolver. Cape is taken to Anderson Memorial Hospital where he is reported in good condition; Simon is arrested and charged assault and battery with intent to kill, and with carrying a pistol unlawfully. He is released on $10,000 bond on Saturday, September 23. This incident will turn out to be the beginning of the end for the Red Carpet as students become wary of the seedier element and stay away thereafter.

September 24: Clemson plays Georgia Tech "for the last time" as Tech continues to refuse to travel to Clemson. Tigers win, 31-14. Kick-off at 1:30 p.m. EDT. Of the seventeen games played between Tech and Clemson between 1953 and 1977, only once, in 1974, did the Yellow Jackets deign to come to Death Valley. To show the Atlanta business community how much money Clemson fans contribute to the local economy which WON'T be coming to town anymore, Tiger fans spend vast quantities of two dollar bills, many of them stamped with Tiger Paws. The local Federal Reserve bank sends out for two dollar denominations as all upstate banks are sucked dry by the demand. This is the start of Clemson's two dollar bill tradition. Ironically, when Georgia Tech joins the ACC on April 3, 1978, they HAVE to road trip to Clemson, starting in 1983.

September 26: Pickens County grand jury indicts two Georgia men on charges of assault and battery with intent to kill, assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, burglary and armed robbery. Older brother, still held in Georgia, fights extradition to South Carolina although younger one waived his extradition rights and surrendered to Pickens County authorities September 22.

September 29: Clemson University Concert Series presents the New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra in Littlejohn Coliseum, 8 p.m. Admission by student Activity Card, Season Ticket, or individual tickets on sale at gate. A Preservation Hall presentation, tour management by Pryor-Menz-Lee Attractions.

October 1: Clemson plays road game at Virginia Tech, winning, 31-13. Kick-off at 1:30 p.m. EDT. Two freshmen, Jeffery Sturt and Susan Strickland, are killed when the 1971 Opel GT driven by Sturt leaves S.C. Highway 183 about three miles north of Walhalla about 4 a.m. and goes down embankment and strikes tree, killing both instantly. The wreck is discovered by another motorist about 6:20 p.m.

October 3: Georgia Governor James Busbee signs extradition order returning the older brother involved in the September 14 attack on two Clemson students to Pickens County for trial on various charges.

October 16: An 18-year-old freshman mechanical engineering major commits suicide by jumping from the fourth-floor breezeway between M and O sections of Martin Hall about 2:30 a.m., after also having cut his wrists in his Johnstone dorm room. The Tiger reports on October 21 that his body is found about 8:55 a.m. by another student. In an example of extreme poor taste, the next day someone paints a target on the spot where he was found and Dean of Student Affairs Walter Cox reacts by having the concrete slab sandblasted clean almost before the paint has time to dry.

October 18: Some 1,200 students rally Tuesday night in the deteriorating Amphitheatre to protest administration plans for the outdoor theatre. Proposal drawings have circulated showing the columns removed and the facility being remodelled with "Clemson pink brick". From this ground swell, "Save Our Amphitheatre People" (SOAP) is born, and who will ultimately prevail in having the facility redone in traditional appearance. The rejected renovation plan was supposed to begin in November but will be delayed for further study.

October 20: Lynyrd Skynyrd's chartered Convair 240 airliner, registered N55VM, c/n 3, operated by L & J Company, departs from Greenville Downtown Airport, runs out of fuel en route to next concert and crashes five miles north of Gillsburg, Mississippi in a swampy pine forest while trying to reach an alternate airport. They were only 48 miles short of the destination, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when they had fuel starvation. Four members of the band and crew are killed, as are both pilots. Lead singer and founder of the band, Ronnie Van Zant, dies at the crash site.

October 21: CDCC sponsors an Octoberfest beer garden at the Hanover House (aka the "Hangover House"), 4:30-7 p.m., with 25 cent beer and music provided by WSBF.

October 22: Twentieth-ranked Tigers defeat N.C. State in Death Valley, 7-3, for Parents' Day. Kick-off at 1 p.m. EDT.

October 28-October 29: The Union sponsors an "All Nite" Halloween Party in the gameroom in the Union building.

October 31: Pickens County Circuit Judge John T. Gentry sentences the younger brother in the September 14 student attack case to fifteen years in prison, stating "If I were the victim of this crime, I would want to strap you and your brother in the electric chair and probably pull the switch myself with alacrity." Earlier in October, Gentry had sent the older brother to prison for life plus 45 years, warning him that if the judge had the Law of Israel as a sentencing option he would use it in this case. The injured student, still recovering in Atlanta, will return to school the following semester under a new identity to shield him from undue attention.

November 6: The Kelly Barnes Dam, an earthen work above the Toccoa Falls Institute bible college, east of Toccoa, Georgia, gives way early Sunday morning and 39 die in the ensuing flood down a valley.

November 7: Work begins on Sirrine Hall renovation, its first such upgrading since its construction in 1939. The first phase is expected to take about nine months and cost $1.4 million.

November 8: Several hundred students are entertained by The Amazing Randi, world-renowned magician and escape artist, in Tillman Hall Auditorium, in a return visit to Clemson. He had previously performed in Tillman on December 3, 1974.

November 11: The Union sponsors November Nonsense on Bowman Field, featuring the world's largest chocolate cream pie, sixteen feet in diameter, as well as a Volkswagen Beetle-stuffing contest.

November 11: President R.C. Edwards makes appearance at the Friday evening pep rally in the Amphitheatre and pleads with students not to disturb the Notre Dame team at their hotel parking lot by taking a pep rally there, after irritation at Irish Coach Dan Devine for writing a letter to the ACC that week complaining about our vaunted crowd noise in the stadium. Let them get their rest and we will have a fair game, is the president's message.

November 12: Clemson plays the Notre Dame Fighting Irish close in a game in Death Valley, but loses, 17-21, to the eventual National Champions. Kick-off at 1 p.m. EST. Irish Coach Dan Devine exhibits outrageous behavior late in the game, even running onto Frank Howard Field during a play to snatch up a penalty flag and hand it back to the referee who threw it. Notre Dame fans don't appreciate his behavior either and he will eventually get the axe after the 1979 season. But not before the Tigers administer some pay back! The Memorial Stadium crowd and Tiger Band give the Irish the silent treatment during the pre-game activities and do not raise a ruckus until the cannon fires at the end of a silent performance by the band when the Sousaphone pedal note of Tiger Rag is the first sound made! A hair-raising moment in Death Valley! Thirty-eight future NFL players, including Notre Dame quarterback Joe Montana and Clemson receiver Dwight Clark, take part in this game.

November 14: The Speakers Bureau presents renowned former Marquette University basketball coach and NBC sports commentator Al McGuire in Tillman Auditorium at 8 p.m. A reception follows the speech.

November 19: Tiger Band roll call and departure for Columbia at 8 a.m. with arrival at Irmo High School for practice at 11:15 a.m., beginning at 11:30. Departure for Williams-Brice Stadium at 2 p.m. Fifteenth-ranked Tigers defeat South Carolina, 31-27, who finish season, 5-7. The 15th-ranked Tigers defeat the Gamecocks, with Jerry Butler making "The Catch" of Steve Fuller's endzone pass in the last quarter. Season record is 8-3-1, 4-1-1 in conference, second in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Originally scheduled kick-off time of 1:30 p.m. EST is pushed back to 4:10 p.m. EST.

November 21: The men's cross country team finishes 20th at the NCAA Meet at Washington State University. This is Clemson's first top-20 team in cross country. Clemson University Concert Series presents the New York Pro Arte Orchestra in Littlejohn Coliseum, 8 p.m. Admission by student Activity Card, Season Ticket, or individual tickets on sale at gate.

December: "Death Valley Disco", a disco arrangement of Tiger Rag performed by studio musicians and released under the name of The Big "O" Orchestra is released on 45 rpm 7-inch record by Easley-based Pineapple Records (Pineapple PA1978). "A Special Tribute To The 1977 Clemson Tigers & Fans", it will gets lots of airplay during football season for the next two seasons or so. The project was produced and arranged by Otis Forrest. Available at Mr. Knickerbocker's for $1.75.

December 7: Senator William Proxmire (D-Wisconsin) appears in Tillman Auditorium at 8 p.m. as the final Speakers Bureau presentation of the semester. At the time, the senator has the longest unbroken record in the history of the Senate in answering rollcall votes, having not missed one of some 5,000 since April 1966.

December 13: National Jet Services Douglas DC-3 (ex-USAAF C-53), N51071, c.n./msn 4837, charter crashes on takeoff from Evansville, Indiana en route to Nashville International Airport, killing all 29 on board, including the entire University of Evansville basketball team.

Christmas break: Work on the expansion of Clemson Memorial Stadium is halted when problems with a portion of the foundation are discovered. Previously unknown landfill is found at the site. Also, the P Plant removes the magnolia tree directly in front of the Loggia during the holiday week.

December 28: Tiger Band roll call at the band room at 7 a.m., departure on Welborn buses at 8 a.m. for Jacksonville. Lunch in Swainsboro, Georgia at noon. Arrival at Ramada Inn West, Jax, at 6:30 p.m. All band personnel rendezvousing in Jacksonville must be accounted for by 8 p.m.

Final year for Tiger Band's worn-out 1963-vintage Guardsman uniforms, in which they perform a "Star Wars" half-time show at the Gator Bowl on December 30, Clemson's first bowl appearance since the 1959Bluebonnet Bowl. Not surprisingly, the Pittsburgh marching band also does a "Star Wars" show. Bands practice together at 9 a.m. Basketball game at noon. Gator Bowl kicks off at 9 p.m. Eleventh-ranked Clemson is defeated by the tenth-ranked defending National Champion Pittsburgh Panthers led by future NFL star player and coach Matt Cavanaugh, 3-34, for a season record of 8-3-1. Kick-off at 9 p.m. EST.

December 31: Tiger Band loads buses at 8:30 a.m., departs Jacksonville at 9 a.m., ETA in Clemson: 8 p.m. Tiger Band bus 3 blows tire in Georgia - eww! Lavatories have not been pumped out in Jacksonville either, making for a heinous ride north.

Tiger football finishes the season ranked 19th in the Associated Press poll, Clemson's first appearance in a final season ranking since 1959. The Tigers do not appear in the United Press International final top twenty poll, however.